


baby, it’s cold inside

by olddarkmachine



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Fluff, M/M, Meet-Cute, duel flustered disasters, heating repairman!Keith, honestly just the way i like my sheith, human popsicle!Shiro, more importantly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2018-12-21
Packaged: 2019-09-24 05:47:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17094998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olddarkmachine/pseuds/olddarkmachine
Summary: “Voltron Heating & AC, what can we do for you?” A smoke filled voice answers. There’s a pleasant rasp to it that reminds Shiro of a crackling fire.“I need help,” he says, mentally kicking himself before he’s even finished speaking when he realizes how stupid he must sound. There’s a pause, filled only with a quiet huffing sound that he’s certain is the technician swallowing a laugh.“What’s your name?” The man asks, key clicks providing a quiet backdrop for his question.“Shiro,” he answers quickly, biting his tongue when he thinks that the man is probably looking for a full name.“Takashi Shirogane,” he rectifies, noting the pause in the typing as he speaks. “My friends call me Shiro.”Because that’s helpful, he thinks to himself, sharpening his glare at his heater.This is all your fault.“Alright, Shiro,” the man says, and Shiro wonders if he’s imagining the way his name sounds like silk the way it’s wrapped in his voice. “How can I help you?”





	baby, it’s cold inside

**Author's Note:**

> It’s the holidays, and ya know what, we deserve some fluff. Shoutout to [smartcookie727](https://archiveofourown.org/users/smartcookie727/) who saved me from just naming this Pilot Light XD ~~also let’s pretend that this sounds like i know anything about heaters~~

It’s Christmas day, and Keith is cold.

Really fucking cold.

Which is just cosmically hilarious given he’s a heating repairman working in a shop without heating. Keith is certain he’d laugh about it if his teeth weren’t chattering violently enough to chip them.

“You should go home, Pidge. Go hang out with your family,” he says through the click, praying he doesn’t catch his tongue between them.

“And leave my favorite Grinch alone on this sacred day?” Pidge says, popping her gum for dramatic effect as she flashes her bright stare up over the top of her computer. “Never.”

“I’m not a Grinch,” Keith replies, almost defiantly as he pulls a foot up into his seat and tucks his knee against his chest.

He really isn’t. It’s a common misconception that he doesn’t like Christmas. He likes it well enough.

In fact, he finds a sort of solace in it. The holidays slowed the town down, and allowed him to breathe.

They were just quiet, and always had been.

For him, at least.

 _I can take this Christmas off, honey,_  his mother had offered the week prior, as she always did.

 _No, the station can’t function without you,_  Keith had laughed, waving her off, as he always did.

Fires didn’t take holidays, and as the captain of the Garrison Fire Department, Krolia knew that better than anyone. They were used to it by now, and always celebrated their Christmas the night before. It was tradition by now, just like Pidge and her show of holiday solidarity.

And if that wasn’t enough, it also meant he got to make a monopoly on any heating disasters that might come up while everyone else was off.

Of course, it’s a decision he’s deeply regretting this Christmas with it’s record lows. He really needed to speak with whoever decided the cheaper warehouse price was worth the lack of heating.

“You have no one to blame but yourself, you know,” Pidge hums, breaking through his train of thought as she continues to click away at her keyboard. He isn’t sure if she means his reputation or the frostbite he’s certain is turning his toes black, but he elects to ignore her since he doesn’t really have an argument either way.

 _Solidarity be damned_ , he thinks as he breathes a hot puff of air between his palms.  _Pidge is Jewish anyways._

Quiet settles over the room, only disrupted by Pidge’s quick keystrokes and the ivory click of his teeth for what seems like an eternity before the phone rings.

Sharp and shrill, it makes him jump, the sudden motion of it shoving his shin into his desk hard enough to make him yipe.

This had been their fifth Christmas with the business, and the first time anyone had actually called during it.

“Are you going to answer that?” Pidge asks, tone curious as she flicks her look between him and the phone that’s still ringing at the edge of his desk as if he needs help finding where the sound is coming from.

Which, is valid given the way he’s gaping over to her, but she didn’t need to know that.

Nodding curtly, Keith reaches for it, pressing the answer button before he has it halfway to his ear as he rubs at his throbbing shin.

“Voltron Heating & AC,” he says, trying his best to not chop up his words through his chatter, “what can we do for you?”

***

It’s Christmas day, and Shiro is cold.

Really fucking cold.

He’d known he had bad luck, what with the career ending accident and the semi-newness of singledom that had left a little dark rain cloud over his holidays, but he hadn’t thought he’d be so unlucky for his heat to crap out on him on Christmas.

 _Ho ho freaking ho_ , he thinks bitterly as he stares at his lifeless heating system. The large metal rectangle didn’t even have enough in it to give one last death rattle as it just sat silently before him.

It looks more like a gravestone than a heater.

To make matters worse, Shiro doesn’t even know where to start with the damn thing to try and fix it himself.

He knew all the intricacies of various space crafts, and yet in the face of a heating system, he was rendered useless. Which, honestly just felt like the cherry on top of the shit sundae that had been his year.

_Typical._

Heaving a sigh, Shiro kicks halfheartedly at the heating system before pulling his phone from his front pocket.

Pulling up Google, he searches ‘heating repair open christmas day,’ accepting Google’s oh so helpful suggestion of tacking on ‘near me’ at the end before pressing enter. There seems to be a momentary pause that’s just long enough for Shiro to imagine the search engine returning his inquiry with a big middle finger before it brings up a list of all the HVAC technicians in the area.

All in which have CLOSED plastered right beside their names in bold.

All, except one.

Boasting five stars from enough reviewers to make the rating seem legit, Shiro clicks the number beneath the name, not bothering to check their website for pricing.

Desperate times called for desperate measures and he was willing to pay what he needed to to regain feeling in his toes.

“Voltron Heating & AC, what can we do for you?” A smoke filled voice answers. There’s a pleasant rasp to it that reminds Shiro of a crackling fire.

“I need help,” he says, mentally kicking himself before he’s even finished speaking when he realizes how stupid he must sound. There’s a pause, filled only with a quiet huffing sound that he’s certain is the technician swallowing a laugh.

“What’s your name?” The man asks, key clicks providing a quiet backdrop for his question.

“Shiro,” he answers quickly, biting his tongue when he thinks that the man is probably looking for a full name.

“Takashi Shirogane,” he rectifies, noting the pause in the typing as he speaks. “My friends call me Shiro.”

 _Because that’s helpful_ , he thinks to himself, sharpening his glare at his heater.  _This is all your fault._

“Alright, Shiro,” the man says, and Shiro wonders if he’s imagining the way his name sounds like silk the way it’s wrapped in his voice. “How can I help you?”

***

Standing in front of the crimson door, Keith thinks he knows what to expect.

While their town isn’t necessarily small, it is small enough for him to know about the the newcomer that had moved there in the past month.

He’s a veteran, so they say, fresh out of rehab from an accident and taking up a position at Allura’s family practice. Kind, even though life has given him enough reason not to be, Takashi Shirogane— _My friends call me Shiro_ — unwittingly became the talk of the town.

Well, the talk of the housewives who had happened by the clinic since he’d started there.

It gave him a certain allure, one that’s left Keith’s heart racing as he raps his knuckles against the door.

He’s also supposed to be very handsome, he thinks as he hears the shuffle of footsteps on the other side.

So they say.

With that in mind, he thinks he knows what to expect up until the exact moment that the door swings open.

Shiro’s eyes catch the sunlight, sparking like a sterling flare, as his lips part around a welcoming smile. He’s younger than he’d been led to believe from the whispers of his achievements and white hair.

“Hey, Keith?” He asks, or at least, Keith thinks he asks. Caught tracking the strong straight of his jaw, it’s honestly lost on him.

Handsome, as it turned out, was an understatement.

“Hi,” Keith manages, shifting his gaze over the soft grey hoodie that is pulled taut across Shiro’s chest. Moving further still, he notes the way it’s tied just above where the elbow of his right arm should be.

“Hi,” he says again, snapping his attention back up to his face. “I’m Keith. From Voltron.”

It earns him a laugh, boastful and saccharine as Shiro leans against the doorframe and pushes his hand into the pocket of his sweats.

A stronger man might have been able to stop his gaze from watching the movement or letting his eyes linger on the comfortable black fabric.

Apparently, Keith is not a stronger man.

“I worked that out,” Shiro says around a smile.

Ever the eloquent type, Keith nods and offers a small, “right.”

Quiet, thick with warm anticipation drags a shiver down his spine that’s altogether different from the one brought on by the angry winter wind that’s been nipping at his skin. It’s weighted with the heavy metal of Shiro’s stare as he keeps it trained on him, as if expecting something more from him.

Which, right.

“So, where’s this heating unit?” Keith asks quickly, unhelpfully holding up his tool box as if there was anymore doubt as to why he was there.

Shifting slightly against the doorframe, Shiro cocks his head back towards his entryway.

“This way,” he says as he stands at his full height and turns toward the innards of his home.

Ignoring the heated twist in his gut that greedily curls around the knowledge that Shiro is a full head taller than him, Keith follows, letting the door shut quietly behind him.

It leads to an open living space, sparse and almost utilitarian with its couch, coffee table and TV set over the fireplace. The only excess comes in the form of three photos standing proud on the mantle. One, in a rich wood frame that features Shiro and a white haired woman that looks a lot like Allura from this distance, in black graduation caps.

Another boasts a group of men, dressed in uniform and posing in front of a jet.

The last, is older, and faded. Set in a golden frame, it stands out from the rest of the room if only because it has the presence of something sacred. In it, is a smiling child, held in the arms of what Keith can only assume is his grandfather.

“It’s just in here,” Shiro calls from ahead in the kitchen, the sound of his voice joined by the creak of another door opening.

Making his way through the kitchen, Keith follows Shiro out into the garage, his eyes zeroing in on the heating system that’s tucked in the corner.

It’s old.

Very, very old.

And covered in enough dust that he’s surprised Shiro hasn’t already started to display signs of black lung.

But most importantly, it’s really fucking old.

The silent assessment must play across his face, because as he’s searching his mental catalogue of heaters for the last time this style had even been made, he hears Shiro make a small, pained sound.

“That’s not a good look,” he says lowly, voice sounding dismayed. Keith shakes his head as he keeps his gaze on the silent metallic box.

“No, it’s okay.”

It’s a lie. From the looks of it, the unit is at least ten years past its replacement date. He honestly can’t even fathom how it’s made it this far, or at the very least, not set the place on fire.

“I should have known the price of this place was too good for there to not be some major fixes needed,” Shiro soliloquizes with a sigh as Keith kneels down, pulling his favorite screwdriver from his back pocket. Making quick work of the siding, it falls away with a sharp clang and a huff of dust to reveal—

Even more dust.

A small wheeze escapes him as he inhales some.

“It’s bad,” Shiro surmises from the sound, voice straining further as Keith pushes back on his haunches and shakes his head. Both at Shiro’s words, but also to clear it of dust.

“It’s not too bad,” he croaks, looking up over his shoulder and offering as much of a smile as he can with his lungs heaving and eyes watering.

“I can fix this.”

It’s another lie. He isn’t actually sure it’s fixable, but he can’t bring himself to say it. Not when Shiro is looking at him with that desperate shine in his eyes, and that jaw set by the gods themselves.

Sighing with relief, he watches as Shiro visibly deflates, his worried look softening into a mix of sheepish and thankful.

Given the circumstance, Keith is certain the first comparison his mind draws for the man shouldn’t be warmth, and yet it does as he watches him nod slowly.  

“Okay,” Shiro says finally. “I’ll leave it to you, then.”

Then, he smiles. A true smile that reaches his eyes and hits Keith with all the force of an 18-wheeler. It smashes his sternum and stops his heart for long enough that he has the time to worry it won’t start again before it kicks back to life in triple time.

“Yeah, leave it to me,” Keith sputters, mouth moving without the help of his still rebooting brain.

Which, is when tragedy strikes.

“I’ll get you warm.”

It’s not what he means to say. Is never what he would mean to say. Yet, he says it anyway.

Silence falls like heavy lead around them as red floods Shiro’s cheeks. Eyes widening, Keith opens his mouth then closes it again with a click, deciding instead to turn back to the heating unit.

Staring into the thick blanket of dust, he wonders for just a moment if he could possibly suffocate himself in it before he starts to get to work.

***

He isn’t checking Keith out.

That feels like a breach in some kind of unsigned contract between him and the white knight of a heating technician that had showed up at his doorstep hours ago.

So no, Shiro isn’t checking him out as he’s on his hands and knees, half shoved into the depths of his apparently unending heating unit.

What he’s doing, is appreciating him.

Appreciating him and his lean form, with his very capable hands and sense of dry humor that played perfectly against his own.

Even after he’d worn out small talk a little over an hour in, Shiro still found himself comfortable as he sat there filling the role of silent moral support.

Shiro would even argue that he was making himself useful, after the second hour when he’d picked up on the small grunt that Keith would make before extricating himself from the bowels of the unit to switch out tools. So now, he’s also filling the role of pseudo assistant.

One who is definitely not checking him out.

He repeats it like a mantra as Keith wiggles his hips, apparently having a tough time with whatever it is in there that he’s been wrestling with.

Soft sounds escape the heating unit as he continues to struggle with the innards of it, moving this way and that, unaware of the pink flush that is sweeping over Shiro’s skin. It makes him run hot in a way that makes him wonder if the heater was already back up and running.

When he’d opened the door, he hadn’t expected to find himself pinned beneath the weight of a stare painted the most intriguing mix of jeweled purple and steely blue. At most, he’d expected the usual, stock variety of heating technicians.

A little bit older, a little bit bigger, and with a little more facial hair.

Instead, Keith turned out to be the human incarnate of a firestorm. With a voice like smoke, and presence that had him filled with an aching burn, Keith seemed to be something other that couldn’t be contained.

Lost deep in the trenches of his thoughts, Shiro misses the Keith slowly pulls back out of the unit and begins reattaching the panel he’d removed. It isn’t until he hears the sharp sound of a palm against metal that he focuses back on the technician, who is looking up at him with a smile as the soft purr of life rolls through the heater.

For one, longstanding moment, Shiro wonders if it’d be too cheesy to consider this a Christmas miracle.

“I told you I could fix it,” Keith says, relief making his smile soft as he uses a hand to push himself up onto his feet before brushing off his knees.

With his hair disheveled, and a dark streak of dust that bridges his nose, he looks like he just returned from battle.

 _Beautiful_ , a stray thought says, sending his heart ricocheting through his chest and up into his throat.

“You did,” he replies, far softer than he’d intended and he feels the ever present flush deepen beneath his scar. The comfortable silence falls once more as Keith 

“So,” he continues, scratching at the back of his neck as he laughs sheepishly, “what’s the damage?”

It’s a simple enough question. A joke, even, as Keith regards him closely. His look is thoughtful, like he’s searching for something as he cocks his head.

And then he smiles.

The arch of it is a curved blade that sinks deep into his chest as Keith finally looks away and starts to rummage through his toolbox, pulling out a receipt book just moments later.

“How about a hundred bucks?” He asks, flipping through the pages in search of an unused one. Making a small sound of triumph, he pulls a pen from his pocket and pulls the cap off with his teeth.

Shiro tries not to focus too hard on the way the blue cap presses against the full of his bottom lip.

He must fail, because then Keith looks up with a questioning brow pulled high at the strangled sound that apparently comes from deep in his own throat.

“Are you sure that’s all you want?” Shiro can’t help but ask. It’s an obscenely low price, he doesn’t need to know anything about heaters to know that, and he can’t quite wrap his mind around it. Mouth caught open, he watches as Keith just nods and starts writing on the pad, shifting the pen cap to the side.

This, Shiro thinks, is also obscene but for a whole other reason.

“Really?” It comes out choked as he reaches for the wallet in his pocket, pulling it open and eyeing the credit cards he no longer needs to ensure he can pay.

The weight of expectation sits on his shoulders as he pulls his debit card free from its pocket, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

It never does, as Keith just shrugs and holds out a hand, eyes still trained downward on the receipt book. Gently, Shiro presses the card to his waiting palm. Lightning buzzes in his fingertips where they brush against Keith’s skin. The feeling pulls a small, shuddering sound from his lips that pulls Keith’s strange grey amethyst gaze up to look at him as he pulls his hand quickly back.

The buzzing feeling remains as he flexes his hand, opening and closing it to see if it would fade.

It doesn’t.

Turning his attention back down, Keith places the card beneath the carbon paper and rubs the side of his pen against it, pressing the numbers into the yellow page. The sudden tear of the paper makes Shiro jump, its sound hanging in the air as Keith folds his copy around the card and hands it back to him.

His smile, seems to grow wider, and cuts deeper.

Shiro wonders if Keith knows just how close to his heart it’s cutting.

“Merry Christmas, Shiro,” he says smoothly as Shiro takes it.

“Yeah, you too.” Shiro wants to kick himself immediately for the stuttering breathlessness of his own voice.

 _Get it together, Shirogane,_  he chides silently as Keith dips his head and grabs his toolbox. Heat is already starting to spread through him as he tries to find anything else to say, though he isn’t even sure what he could say.

Want to stay for dinner, maybe?

 _Want to stay forever_ , a very unhelpful voice supplies.

It isn’t until he’s decided on  _maybe thanks_ , that he realizes Keith has already seen himself out. The sound of his front door clicking shut rocks down his spine, landing at the base of his stomach in the form of heavy disappointment.

Beside him, his heater continues to purr, and it almost sounds like a hissing laugh.

“Shut up,” he whispers as he unfolds the receipt, grabbing his card and immediately dropping it as if its shocked him.

It hasn’t, but the handwriting beneath it had.

Swallowing down the thrumming heart in his throat, Shiro rereads it.

It’s ten digits, and a whole name.

Keith Kogane, his Christmas miracle, had left his number.

***

“A hundred dollars, Keith,” Pidge mutters under her breath for the thousandth time as she presses her forehead down into her palms. “A hundred dollars.”

Admittedly, Keith knows that it’s a low price.

Even triple that would have been an obscenely low price for the miracle he had managed. There was no reason for the fix to work, and even now, near two hours after the fact, he still isn’t quite sure how he’d done it. Nor, was he planning on questioning it.

 _It’s a Christmas miracle_ , a small voice cooed at the back of his mind as he just shrugs at Pidge yet again.

On any other day, he’d try to explain himself.

Of course, on any other day, he wouldn’t charge a customer a tenth of the price for a fix. More importantly, he wouldn’t leave his phone number either.

God, he’d left his  _number_.

Dropping his head down on his desk with a soft  _thunk!_ , he tries to pinpoint the exact moment his life had devolved into a Hallmark Christmas movie.

As if he could actually pass as some protagonist. Or love interest.

Groaning into the fake wood grain, Keith rubbed his forehead against its cool surface.

Was he the  _love interest_?

“A hundred dollars, Keith,” Pidge moans again in reply.

 _A hundred dollars, and a phone number_ , he silently bites back.

Falling into a shared silence, the room goes almost painfully quiet as Keith considers the many ways he could possibly explain away the temporary lapse in his own judgement.

Maybe he could blame the amount of dust he’d inhaled, claiming momentary insanity. Maybe he could claim it was nothing more than a friendly offer for Shiro to reach out to him when his heater inevitably bit it again. Or maybe, he could blame it on a deranged twin.

 _Yorak_ , Keith thinks with a mental nod when he feels the sudden buzz of a text alert skitter across his desktop and against his forehead. It freezes him, stalling his breath as his eyes fly open to be filled with the light brown of the fake wood.

Rolling his head to the side, he presses his cheek flush to the desk as he eyes his phone. At this angle, all he can see is the light of his screen as it stays lit with its message.

It’s a coincidence, he’s sure, as he continues to hold his breath and lifts a hesitant hand toward the offending piece of technology that has lodges his heart in his throat. Just a coincidence.

With a gentle press of his fingers, Keith flips the phone onto his side, his eyes widening at the bold, unsaved number, and the single line of text that accompanies it.

**How about coffee sometime?**

And then, it buzzes against his palm as another joins it.

**It’s Shiro btw.**

The obviousness of it startles a snorting sound from him as he sits up.

**_yeah i kinda figured_ **

Keith breathes, the air expanding his chest and grounding him as he continues to type, letting his fingers press the words into the screen before his mind can catch up.

**_coffee would be great_ **

Cutting his gaze up from the screen, he finds Pidge still at her desk with her head in her hands. By the way her shoulders move, he wonders quietly if she’s fallen asleep as he waits for a reply.

Several minutes pass before it comes in the form of a tickling vibration in his palm.

**How about today?**

He must make a sound, because out of the corner of his eye, he sees the bounce of her tawny hair as she flicks her head upward. Worst of all, he can feel her stare cutting into him as he taps out his response.

**_something tells me it might be tough finding a place open today_ **

Shiro’s next text comes in, almost instantaneous.

**You could always come back to mine. I make a mean latte :)**

Forty-seven seconds pass before Keith gets the next text. He knows, because he counts them in some vague attempt to slow the rapid fire stutter of his heart as he tries to come up with what to say.

**Too forward. Ignore that.**

Keith has only known Shiro for the three and a half hours that it took to fix his heater, but he can already imagine the pink that is probably spilling across his cheeks as he rubs a palm against the back of his neck. It makes him laugh. A real laugh that makes Pidge’s stare burn hotter against his skin.

**_no i think id like that_ **

He sends the message, all too aware of the way his lips are stuck in an upward curl when Pidge clears her throat pointedly. Looking up, he catches the way her gaze shifts between the phone and his face, and the way her mouth opens around a comment.

Keith beats her to it.

“Pidge?” He says, smile growing wider as the phone buzzes in his hand again.

“Yes?” She replies, curiosity and confusion filling the word as she looks down at the phone again.

Excitement flutters through him as the buzz tickles his palm once more.

“Let’s close up for Christmas.”

*************************

**Author's Note:**

> ~~and then they spent until the wee hours of the next morning just talking, ended up buying shiro a new heater and eventually lived happily ever after. the end~~


End file.
